


Shower Scene

by keerawa



Category: Life (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e01, F/M, Gen, Inappropriate Erections, Law Enforcement, Partnership, Showers, Yuletide, Yuletide 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 10:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keerawa/pseuds/keerawa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fact it's inappropriate doesn't stop Charlie from reacting to his partner half-naked in a shower.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shower Scene

**Author's Note:**

  * For [7iris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/7iris/gifts).



As soon as the junkie, the shooter (the scared kid that Charlie had killed) lets out his last breath, Charlie calls for his partner. She'd said she wasn’t shot, but Reese’s strangled gasp after that shotgun blast went off indicated she’d been hurt. Shrapnel, maybe? Charlie finds her in the rusty, stinking bathroom.

“Get it off. Oh, God, get it off,” Reese whimpers, covered in white powder, trying and failing to climb into the shower. 

Cocaine.

Well, now he knows what she did to get saddled with him as a partner.

Charlie lifts her, smaller and lighter than her attitude had led him to expect, and places his hands over hers, shaking and weak, to turn on the water. She’d stripped off her vest and shirt, only a clinging white camisole beneath. Reese scrubs at her face and body, frantically releasing her hair to tumble down her shoulders as the water runs over her, molding the tiny, transparent white undergarment to her breasts.

Charlie swallows. Women. All those years in prison, and now he was surrounded by women, like a man gone directly from starving on a desert island to an all-you-can-eat dim sum. The women were beautiful, they were everywhere, and they were throwing themselves at him. Charlie wasn’t sure if it was the money, the fame, the hint of danger, or if tall red-headed guys were the new sexy. Whenever he asked, they said yes. Maybe he’d just never asked, before?

And no matter how gorgeous, how fun, how smart they were, Charlie never felt the spark he’d had with Jennifer, from their very first date. Never a hint that there could be a real connection between them, like he thought he’d found with his wife. Ex-wife. Desire, attachment to things in this life that were by nature impermanent, that was the root of all suffering, wasn’t it? Maybe the fact he wasn’t even trying for love anymore meant he was becoming more enlightened.

Reese turns off the water, gulping frantic breaths of air. If she was crying, the water from the shower covers it well. Charlie reaches to give her a hand out of the tub. She shoves it, and him, away.

Or maybe it meant he was too fucked up to try.

Charlie trails his partner out of the shower and back onto the crime scene.


End file.
